To collect pending credits before race start is not only allowed but welcome! The whole purpose is to do our utmost and work hard for SETI@home and thus provide invaluable support. So don't be afraid to start crunching for SETI@home with all of your available CPUs & GPUs before the race starts.

And who knows, maybe it will be you who finds the new Wow! Signal which will not just be going down in grid computing history!